The theme for the 2026 Church of Pentecost Youth Ministry Week celebrations is: “Making Jesus Famous Everywhere” (Dan. 3:28-29; Mk. 1:28; Acts 8:4-8). By God’s grace it is always excitingly encouraging to see our youth troop out in their numbers all over the country and elsewhere to celebrate the week in grand style and to touch lives for Jesus. On some occasions in the last three years especially, our auditoriums have not been able to contain the numbers, all to the glory of God!
As we go about this year’s celebration, which as noted earlier, is themed “Making Jesus Famous Everywhere,” the question, “What does it mean to make Jesus famous at all?” is well placed. This is so key, so we do not get the main point lost in the midst of every other thing we are doing.
Not About Cheap Popularity
First, making Jesus famous is not about making Him enjoy or ride on cheap popularity. There was a time in the Bible, during the temptation of Jesus recorded in Luke 4:9-12, that the devil sought to trap Him into cheap popularity, but Jesus declined it. Accordingly, the devil wanted to deceive Jesus into throwing Himself off the pinnacle of the temple and counting on God’s angels to catch Him, since it had been written in the Scriptures that God would command His angels to hold Him fast so He would not dash His foot against a stone. This was an invitation to cheap popularity. In fact, the newspapers and various other news headlines would have captured it the next day: “A New Hero Arrives: Jesus of Nazareth Jumps from a Rooftop and Lands Unscathed.” This would have made Jesus so famous, but Jesus declined it because it was not and it is still not the kind of cheap popularity He looks for.
In fact, there were many times in the Gospels that Jesus warned the disciples and others He had helped not to tell anyone about it. So, Jesus is not looking for cheap popularity, and that is not what the Youth Week celebration is about at all. This is why our use of modern media to communicate this theme should be careful and well directed. For example, an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated image of a goat with the inscription ‘Making Jesus Famous’ misses the point just as another design with a plane flying with Jesus sitting on it.
Preaching, Follow-Up, and Discipleship
What do we then mean to make Jesus famous? First and most importantly, it is to make Jesus the Lord and Saviour of many lives. This is what we call in our Pentecostal and Evangelical parlance that people will be “Born Again”. The truth is that Jesus is made famous when He becomes the Saviour and Lord (that is, Master) of many lives and through that reign over the nations and the peoples of the earth. People are dying in their sins; they are desperately going to hell without finding the salvation that Jesus alone gives. “…for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, NIV).
As we celebrate the Week our central goal must be to bring people to salvation in Christ Jesus. This must drive our various actions. That is to say that we begin to make Jesus famous when we begin to preach Him to those who do not know Him. This commitment must begin from looking around us for people who do not know Jesus, and praying for them and asking God to grant them repentance. We then must move to the next step where we bolster the confidence to preach the Gospel to them. This step is important because as the Bible has said, how can people believe in God when they have not heard about Him because no one has preached about Him to them? (Rom. 10:14).
The next step is to follow up those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour through our evangelism effort. The goal here is to make them understand the decision they have made to walk with God and to help them pick their initial steps in their newly found faith. After this there will be the need to be regular with them to help disciple them so that they will be grounded in Christ, become committed to the Church, and become fellow soulwinners with us. Surely, personal evangelism is a powerful way to make Jesus famous. This is what Philip did in the city of Samaria when he ventured to preach the Gospel there all by himself, and when he did that God glorified His name and many lives were won for the Lord Jesus as many others were delivered from the power and the deception of the devil (Acts 8:4-8). This will be our experience as well as you venture to preach the Gospel. As our father and Chairman has always said, “Heaven needs more preachers!” Let us avail ourselves for this call.
Holy Living
Aside from evangelism, another way to make Jesus famous is our holy living, and this year’s Youth week also aims at empowering us to live for the Lord Jesus in all areas of our lives. We will especially place emphasis on holy living regarding relationships, love, sex, and the use of social media. James 1:27 teaches that part of the true religion God accepts is to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world.
Productivity, and Professional and Academic Excellence
Jesus is also made famous through our productivity, and this is why the leadership of the Youth Ministry has also seen the need to dedicate one of the days of the Week celebrations to treating “Kingdom Work Ethics, and Professional and Academic Excellence.” There is a way God expects the people in His Kingdom to approach work, and that is the way of integrity, faithfulness, diligence, respect for authority and the demonstration of other virtues as indicated in Luke 16:10-12. Similarly, the word of God espouses professionalism, and we are called to be of ethical conduct, be prompt in our delivery, endeavour to be innovative and have problem-solving abilities as Christian professionals. Similarly, we must have good customer care skills and also master the art of effective people management, strategy building, supervision, and evaluation among others.
Some of the professionals in the Bible that I am most enthused about, and whom my wife and I have lovingly written about in our book, Lessons for the Young Anointed (Vol. 2): God’s Faithful Ambassadors in Babylon are Daniel and Joseph. I love these brothers. They were transformative leaders in Babylon and Egypt respectively, not only because they were God-fearing but also because of their professional delivery – they knew what to do, they had the know-how, and they did it with excellence. (See Dan. 6:1-5 for example). Academic excellence is another avenue to make Jesus famous, and Scriptures such as Acts 7:22 and Daniel 1:4, 17, 20, 9:2 especially challenge us from the lives of Moses and Daniel and his friends, respectively, to learn hard. The truth is that we perish for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6). I have often marveled at how God gave the opportunity for Moses to train as a lawyer in Egypt (in the court of Pharaoh) and how He later used him to give the Law to Israel. Moses was not only to receive the Law, but he was to record it, teach the people, and apply it in their society so that there will be the rule of (God’s) law. Later, he also served as a judge for the people. Indeed, the leadership and wisdom lessons he had learned while schooling in the court of Pharaoh were all useful for what God later used Him for while serving as the leader of God’s people. We must note that he was both a prophet and a highly educated and trained leader, and both strengths worked perfectly to the glory of the God Who, by His wisdom, gave him both sides.
The same was true of Daniel, who underwent three years of training before demonstrating professional excellence in Babylon. He was both a prophet and a statesman. The point is clear: God often provides opportunities to prepare us for what He will later call us to do. If we neglect the learning phase of life, we may be unprepared when those opportunities come. May the Lord help us pursue academic excellence and intellectual growth, which we also need as Christians to make Jesus famous.
Not Just With Our Lips, But With Our Lives
The point we are making is that we do not only make Jesus famous as we preach Him with our lips but also with our lives. Paul’s change of life (the Christlike character he demonstrated after converting to Jesus) made people praise God (Gal. 1:24). When people find us to be as holy, they will praise our God and that will make Him famous. In the same way when we work hard and faithfully, we demonstrate Christ-centered professional excellence just as when we excel academically. This is because people will praise God and be attracted to our Jesus. This is what the Apostle Peter meant when he wrote to the believers scattered over the world: “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God …” (1 Pet. 2:12, NIV).
May the Lord grant us a most successful Youth Week celebration, one that makes Jesus famous everywhere indeed, and may He do that through all of us!
Written by Apostle Dr. Ebenezer Hagan (Youth Ministry Director of The Church of Pentecost)
